In the past few decades, government limits on the use of leaded fuels have led to the use of smaller gasoline fuel nozzles, designed to fit through “restrictors” in the fill tubes of gasoline-powered vehicles. These restrictors were designed to prevent the introduction of leaded gas into vehicles containing catalytic converters, which would be “poisoned” by the tetraethyl lead contained in older gasoline formulations. Another recent trend has been increasing use of diesel engines to power automobiles and other smaller vehicles, using low-sulfur diesel fuels. As a result, vehicles which an operator might have assumed to require gasoline in the past may now require diesel fuel instead, with correspondingly increased chances of incorrect fueling occurring.
Non-leaded gasoline fill nozzles are approximately 13/16 inch in outer diameter, with gasoline-powered vehicles being configured with restrictors in their gasoline fill tubes having openings corresponding to this size nozzle. Small vehicle diesel fill nozzles are slightly larger, approximately 15/16 inch in diameter, corresponding to the size of the older leaded gas fill nozzles. The restrictors in diesel-powered vehicles must then have openings correspondingly larger to accommodate this slightly larger size fill nozzle.
As a result, the restrictors in gasoline-powered vehicles have openings too small to allow insertion of low-sulfur #2 diesel fuel nozzles (since these nozzles have the same size as the old leaded fuel nozzles, the insertion of which the restrictor was designed to prevent). This situation generally minimizes the chance of accidentally introducing diesel fuel into a gasoline-powered vehicle. Unfortunately, the opposite error of accidentally introducing gasoline into a diesel-powered vehicle is not prevented by the restrictor mechanism, since the smaller gasoline fill nozzle easily fits through the larger opening in the diesel fill tube restrictor. In the past, when diesel power was generally employed only for larger trucks and very few smaller vehicles, this fueling error was less common. With the advent of modern diesel-powered smaller vehicles, such as those employing common-rail direct fuel injection, increasing numbers of smaller vehicles are diesel-powered with the result that fueling errors are now more common.
In response to the need to reduce fueling errors, a number of mechanical methods have been proposed. An early example is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 3,911,977, issued Oct. 14, 1975, describing a filler pipe end structure. More recent examples include U.S. Pat. No. 5,249,612, issued Oct. 5, 1993 for an apparatus and method for controlling fluid dispensing employing complex electronic sensing means. Purely mechanical approaches are described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,302,169, issued Oct. 16, 2001, covering a purely mechanical diesel fuel nozzle restrictor. Another purely mechanical device for preventing entry of gasoline into a diesel-powered vehicle is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,923,226, issued Aug. 2, 2005.
A difficulty with any purely mechanical approach to preventing fueling errors is the harshness of the vehicle refueling environment. In the vast majority of cases vehicle fueling is performed by the vehicle driver who may tend to insert and remove the fill nozzle with insufficient attention to possible damage which may result to the complex mechanisms described in the above prior art fueling schemes. Thus there is a need for a method of preventing the introduction of gasoline into diesel-powered vehicles which is more robust against mechanical damage, preferably a method not requiring physical contact between the fuel nozzle (diesel or gasoline) and the sensor mechanism employed to prevent fueling errors.